To the Lighthouse: A Rhetorical Device, Humor

Humor is a rhetorical device that writers use to induce laughter or amusement in their readers, or more seriously, to highlight societal flaws

This Brave New World, LXIV

written in response to Republican Governor Doug Ducey's end-of-term, 97-million-dollars gift to his beloved "Land of the Free"

mile after mile

of stacked shipping containers 

topped by razor wire

under the desert sun

this Border Wall of Hate | Fear

NeverEnding Story, December 13 2022

mindless culture wars

On the Brink of Trumperica, XIII

woke mind virus ...

this double-masked man mumbles

in the psych ward

NeverEnding Story, February 8 2025

(FYI:

‘woke’ just means you give a damn about other people...We must stay in community. We must help the vulnerable. We must find ways to project an inspiring vision of the future

-- Jane Fonda, Feb. 23, 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards speech)

political corruption, which is rampant in Trumpland (CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) is tracking Trump’s unprecedented corruption (again), Feb. 3, 2025), 

On the Brink of Trumperica, XII

the people of Trump

                  by the people of Musk

                  for the people of the SuperRich ...

sun-bleached stars and stripes

atop the Capitol fencing

NeverEnding Story, February 8, 2025

Or complete incompetence.

Between Heaven and Hell, VI

ka-kis-to-cracy ...

my English teacher's voice

quivering

as U-S-A! chants get louder

from the crowd outside the school

NeverEnding Story, November 16 2024

(FYI: The first part of the word comes from the Greek kákisto(s), meaning “worst.” So kakistocracy means “government by the worst.” The earliest known use of the word was in the 1600s by Paul Gosnold, a loyalist to King Charles I during the English Civil War.)

Now, what literary device is being used for humorous effect? Hyperbole is one of the commonly used devices with a focus, thematic or visual, on exaggeration for humorous effect, or the effective use of pun, irony, sarcasm, or the combination of these devices, can also achieve the same effect.

For example, see the titling, structure, political jargons, and "scientific fact " (as shown in the third haiku 😆) of the following haiku sequence:

Trump Empire, Inc., IX

written in response to Bob Newhart's claim: "Humor’s a weapon if you want to make it one"

Easy as 1-2-3 When Humor Bombs

MAGA bar brawl between Trump jokes a thunderous echo-fart

floodafterfloodoftariffstaxcutMARA

King Trump's Castro-length shit-words

raising chickens for eggs

since wave after wave of DOGE cuts

I fart so often

(FYI: The noun shit-word has been obsolete since its recorded usage only in the Middle English period (1150—1500) (shit-word entry, Oxford English Dictionary). Now, it's revived by King Trump.

DOGE stands for the "Department of Government Efficiency", and MARA for "Make America Rich Again."

And eggs contain sulfur, which can contribute to the sulfurous smell of gas.  😂)

To conclude today's post, I would like to share with you the following remarks:

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.

-- Mark Twain

Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.

-- Oscar Ameringer

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

-- Plato

Added: Trump Empire, Inc., X

wall-mounted TV

blasting Putin demands to keep

captured territories

as we buy stinky tofu ...

one adds, "including the White House"

FYI: Stinky tofu, also known as "chou doufu" in Chinese, is a fermented bean curd dish popular in China and Taiwan, known for its strong, pungent odor and unique flavor. 

To the Lighthouse: Kyoka, Madcap Verse

Kyoka (狂歌, "madcap verse") is a popular, parodic  subgenre of waka (ancient name for tanka),  as a form of amusement and diversion, and it characteristically uses puns for language play and humor, and mixes high and low language to express freedom and radically redefines traditional waka. For example, a kyoka might start off sounding like a typical courtly verse, with elevated diction and evocative imagery, only to crash to earth in the final lines, in a witty or ironic utterance of  the commoner's practical/worldly concerns, expressed in the language of everyday life

As a genre of entertainment, kyoka has an ancient lineage; the 14th century collection, Hyakushu Kyoka (One Hundred Madcap Verses on Alcohol), was the first to bear the genre's name. Kyoka flourished in the Edo period (1600-1868) and reached its peak in the Temmei era (1781-89), when two women poets, Fushimatsu no Kaka and Chie no Naishi, were prominent (Understanding Humor in Japan edited by Jessica Milner Davis p.111).

The following is a set of selected kyoka, which I hope  it will bring a big smile on your face:

everybody's
heading in
the same direction --
I watch
from the sidelines

Ishikawa Takuboku

wrote GREAT
in the sand
a hundred times
forgot about dying
and went on home

Ishikawa Takuboku

writing a poem
of longing for her
I'm irritated
by the interruption
of her phone call

George Swede

criticizing
my husband
for criticizing me
I miss the exit
from the traffic circle

Angela Leuck

a couple fussing
over which tea is which ...
I tell myself,
I made a God choice
not to get married

Chen-ou Liu

thirty years
on the job
I've become
something of an expert
on what's unimportant

John Stevenson

Fox news
with the weight of "isms"
my eyelids sink
into a dream world
of plain talk

Guy Simser

repeatedly
talking, talking
over each other ...
a Trump fan
and the parrot

Chen-ou Liu

If I sit here
listening to your poetry
very much longer
I will be wrinkled
like an old woman!

M. Kei

To the Lighthouse: Senryu (Satirical / Comic Haiku)

                                                                            white house press briefing
                                                                            my parrot yelling out,
                                                                            fake news, very fake news ...                                                           

The vehicle of senryu is an excellent way to express human pathos and the naked and true nature of what a human being is. -- Onishi Yasuyo

Senryu: A Japanese verse of the same length as a haiku, but without the requirement of a “season word” or a cutting word (kireji); making pointed comments on some aspect of human behaviour, and generally regarded by the Japanese as vulgar or at least inferior to haiku

-- excerpted from What Happens in Haibun: A Critical Study of an Innovative Literary Form (2013), written by David Cobb (renowned poet and co-founder of the British Haiku Society), pp. 85-6.

If this Japanese view of senryu as “vulgar or at least inferior to haiku” is true, why do hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of Japanese men and women read and write senryu daily? And why was Onishi Yasuyo, Japanese senryu poet, awarded in 1996 one of the most prestigious haiku awards, the Nakaniida Haiku Prize, for her brilliantly-crafted senryu (Poem of Consciousness: Contemporary Japanese and English Language Haiku in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Richard Gilbert, p. 224)? In her interview with Richard Gilbert (ibid, pp.223-32), Onishi emphasizes that “the vehicle of senryu is an excellent way to express human pathos and the naked and true nature of what a human being is. In order to express such things, senryu may in fact be an ideal literary form” (ibid., p. 227). Below are some of her senryu included in Gilbert’s book (ibid., pp. 233-4)

from behind

comes the sound of water

comes news of death

where a life starts and becomes

                    september wind

in the deep bosom

of a sniper --

myrtle blossom

hydrangea darkness --

the past gradually withers

For more information about the historical and aesthetic development of senryu in the Japanese context, see “Introduction,” Light Verse from the Floating World: An Anthology of  Premodern Japanese Senryu by Makoto Ueda, pp. 1-40:

Strictly speaking, it is not quite right to call them senryu, because there was no such usage when they were written. Contemporaries knew them as maekuzuke (verse capping), kyoku (mad verse), zareku (playful verse), and by several other names. Senryu as the name of a poetic genre came into existence in the mid-nineteenth century and became well established only in the twentieth century. Today it is common practice in Japan to apply the term to all poems belonging to the genre, regardless of when they were written... a writer of senryu keenly studies various aspects of the human condition and reports his findings in a humorous way, the humor sometimes crossing over to the territory of satire. Senryu differs from haiku in its rhetoric, too, since it seldom uses the common haiku technique known as internal comparison. Whereas a haiku often juxtaposes two disparate objects challenges the reader to make an imaginary connection between them, a typical senryu presents one unique situation and asks the reader to view it in the light of reason or common sense. The reader who does that will usually experience a feeling of superiority, or of incongruity, or of relief, which in turn lead to laughter. It is not without reason that senryu is often translated as "comic verse" or "satirical poetry." ("Preface," pp. vii-viii)

-- excerpted from To the Lighthouse: Misunderstood Japanese Literary Terms

Senryu are not failed haiku or "generally regarded by the Japanese as vulgar or at least inferior to haiku" as David Cobb claims in his book. Historically speaking, sociopolitically conscious senrou could make the ruling class fear or tremble. For example, of Ueda's anthology, the first section aims at people of the ruling warrior class. It's titled "We Are Swordless, but Not Wordless" (pp. 43-63). The following is what Ueda calls "one of the most famous senryu of all time:"

yakunin no ko wa niginigi o yoku oboe

the official’s little son --

how fast he’s learned to open

and close his fist!

The pivotal word is “niginigi.” A derivative of “nigiru,” “to grab” or “to grip,” and a typical example of the baby-talk vocabulary with which the Japanese language abounds, niginigi describes the innocuous way an infant is induced to open and close his palm. You can almost hear a happy child gurgling...You must also know that the senryu refers to one distinctive aspect of the period in which it was composed: the age of Tanuma Okitsugu (1719-1788). Tanuma, who ruled first as shogunate adviser, then as top administrator, was so tolerant of bribery that his name became almost synonymous with the act. Given this, the description of the innocent act takes on a sinister meaning.

-- excerpted from Timeless jabs at the ordinary by Hiroaki Sato

I think it's politically suitable to conclude today's post about senryu with the following senryu sequence:

American Carnage: New Life in Trumpland

Go Trump graffiti

a stray dog

marking his spot

trumping Trump

my Mexican parrot

lifts up its voice

election night

a scream from the other side

of the fence

Trump victory

the sky bursting

with crows

post-election blues

my sister dressed in black

from head to toe

Thanksgiving dinner

Trump hats and Clinton stickers

left on the doormat

misty night

red states,  blue states

strongertogether

first false dawn

Donald Trump Toppled

on realnews.com

bald eagle's cry

cut off

Inauguration Day

a neon sign

on the White House roof:

Alternative Facts 


Updated, January 22:

Another senryu about this "new life" in Trumpland:

White House press briefing:
Donald Trump in a bathrobe
watching RealNews

Note:  For further discussion on David Cobb's What Happens in Haibun: A Critical Study of an Innovative Literary Form, see my review essay (30-page thematic, textual, and perspectival analysis), titled What Happens in [David Cobb’s Conception of] Haibun: A Critical Study for Readers Who Want More, which was first published in Haibun Today, 7:3, September 2013